Badr Jafar

Badr Jafar

Badr Jafar at the United Nations in 2010
Born (1979-08-09) August 9, 1979
Sharjah, UAE
Nationality United Arab Emirates
Alma mater Eton College
Cambridge University

Badr Jafar (Arabic: بدر حميد جعفر‎‎) is an Emirati businessman. He is the Chief Executive Officer of Crescent Enterprises, a multinational business. He is also the President of its sister company Crescent Petroleum, a privately owned oil and gas company headquartered in the United Arab Emirates. Jafar is Chairman of Pearl Petroleum, a five-member international consortium for the development of natural gas assets in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, and Chair of the Executive Board of Gulftainer, a global ports company.[1]

He launched the Pearl Initiative in September 2010 at the United Nations, a private sector-led initiative to promote corporate governance, accountability and transparency as a key driver of competitiveness within the Persian Gulf region of the Middle East.[2][3] In 2011, Jafar was named a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum.[4][5][6]

Named one of the top 20 most influential Arabs by Arabian Business in 2016,[7]

Early life and education

Badr Jafar was born and raised in Sharjah, United Arab Emirates. He is the son of Hamid Jafar and the grandson of Dhiya Jafar, who was Iraq's development minister.[8] His father's brother, Jafar Jafar, is a nuclear physicist who lead Iraq's nuclear programme under Saddam Hussein.[8][9] In 1994 he continued his education at Eton College, and graduated in 1999 from Cambridge University with a Masters degree in engineering and additional studies in astrophysics. In 1996, Harvard University awarded Jafar the Harvard Book Award, presented to students who "display excellence in scholarship and high character, combined with achievements in other fields." Jafar subsequently attended the Cambridge Judge Business School at the University of Cambridge.[10]

Entrepreneurship

Badr Jafar is a staunch advocate of the role of social enterprise and impact entrepreneurship in addressing socio-economic challenges across the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).[11] In 2014, he launched the Arab World Social Entrepreneurship Program in partnership with Ashoka, a social entrepreneurship organisation to identify and help scale the region's most promising social businesses.[12]

Jafar is a Founding Board Member of Endeavor UAE,[13] and a member of the Global Board for Education for Employment,[10] a Washington DC-headquartered organisation which works to train and upskill the youth of the MENA region to empower them for employment.

Social initiatives

Badr Jafar has launched a series of projects using the arts as a means to empower youth and promote cultural diplomacy. In 2014, the Kennedy Centre honoured Jafar with a Gold Medal in the Arts in recognition of his efforts with cultural diplomacy to build closer ties between nations and regions.[14]

In May 2011, Jafar and music producer Quincy Jones produced a charity single titled Tomorrow/Bokra,[15] featuring 26 Arab artists, to raise funds for educational arts projects for displaced youth in the Middle East.[16] The proceeds went towards the development of arts programs for over 430,000 children in partnership with Save The Children. In February 2011, actor Kevin Spacey and Jafar launched the Middle East Theatre Academy (META), a non-profit theatre academy to provide a platform to nurture young actors, directors, and producers from the Middle East, and help them to showcase their talent internationally.[17]

References

  1. ↑ Hope, Bradley (3 December 2009). "Crescent's Badr Jafar has world at his feet". The National. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
  2. ↑ "Badr Jafar named Young CEO of the Year 2009". MENAFN. MENAFN Press. 29 September 2009. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
  3. ↑ "Biography of Mr. Badr Jafar". Growth Gate Capital Corporation. 2007. Archived from the original on 16 March 2014. Retrieved 15 July 2010.
  4. ↑ "Middle East Gulf Region Governance Initiative Launched at UN". MarketWatch. MarketWatch. 20 September 2010. Retrieved 7 October 2010.
  5. ↑ "Badr Jafar". Pearl Initiative. 20 September 2010. Archived from the original on 27 July 2011. Retrieved 7 October 2010.
  6. ↑ Zopf, Yann (9 March 2011). "World Economic Forum Announces Young Global Leaders 2011 (Middle East/North Africa)". World Economic Forum. Archived from the original on 11 April 2011. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
  7. ↑ "Revealed: 100 Most Powerful Arabs Under 40". Retrieved 11 April 2016.
  8. 1 2 Tamsin Carlisle (5 September 2010). "Magnate with more in sight than oil in his homeland, Iraq". The National. Retrieved 23 October 2016.
  9. ↑ Robert Windrem (24 Oct 2003). "A man with a foot in multiple worlds". NBC News. Retrieved 25 April 2016.
  10. 1 2 "Badr H. Jafar". Bloomberg. Retrieved 29 April 2016.
  11. ↑ "In Pictures: 100 under 40: The world's most influential young Arabs 2016". Gulf Times. Retrieved 12 April 2016.
  12. ↑ "Ashoka launches Gulf platform for social entrepreneurship". 2014-04-09. Retrieved 29 April 2016.
  13. ↑ "Badr Jafar". Endeavor. Retrieved 1 Jun 2016.
  14. ↑ "Kennedy Centre honours Quincy Jones, Badr Jafar for "bridging cultures"". eSeoulpost. 2014-04-04. Retrieved 29 April 2016.
  15. ↑ "Quincy Jones and UAE entrepreneur form joint venture". LA Independent. 7 March 2011. Archived from the original on 13 July 2011. Retrieved 11 March 2011.
  16. ↑ "Kennedy Centre Honours Quincy Jones, Badr Jafar for "Bridging Cultures"". UAE Interact. Archived from the original on 14 February 2015. Retrieved 14 February 2015.
  17. ↑ Rachel Lee (6 February 2011). "Kevin Spacey Plans Middle East Academy". New York Times. Retrieved 25 February 2011.
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